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Coronavirus pandemic

Africa’s coronavirus fatalities top 7,000

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections

PRETORIA, June 18. /TASS/. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Africa reached 265,356 after increasing by 8,852 in the past 24 hours, while 7,098 patients died from the virus-related causes across the continent, the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa branch said Thursday, adding that 122,000 patients recovered on the continent.

South Africa accounts for the biggest number of infections (80,412) and 1,674 deaths. Egypt, meanwhile, has the biggest coronavirus death toll (1,766). Algeria reported 799 fatalities.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is ranked second after South Africa with 17,735 coronavirus infections and 469 fatalities, followed by Ghana (12,590 and 66).

In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe.

On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 8,450,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 450,000 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 4,430,000 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.

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